Total Drama (often shortened as TD) is a Canadian animated television comedy series created by Jennifer Pertsch and Tom McGillis that premiered on Teletoon (now the Canadian version of Cartoon Network) in Canada on July 8, 2007, and on Cartoon Network in the U.S. on June 5, 2008. Also, in March 21, 2009, the United Kingdom premiered Total Drama on Jetix. The series is both a homage and satire of common conventions from reality television competition shows like Survivor.

Each season revolves around a group of teens competing in an elimination-style competition, in that the contestants compete in challenges both as teams and individually for rewards and immunity from elimination. The teams merge roughly halfway through the competition into individuals. As the contestants develop relationships with each other, they are progressively eliminated from the game. When there are only two or three contestants remaining, they compete in a final challenge where the winner is awarded a cash prize: C$100,000 (US$73,129.00) in the first season, or C$1,000,000 (US$731,485.00) from the second season onward. The series currently consists of six seasons: Island (2007), Action, World Tour, Revenge of the Island, the two-part All-Stars and Pahkitew Island, and the two-part Island (2023–2024).

Total Drama has developed a cult following and spawned a franchise. A spin-off series, Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, premiered on September 7, 2015. A second spin-off series, Total DramaRama, premiered on September 1, 2018, in the U.S., and on October 7, 2018, in Canada. While Netflix started streaming selected seasons of Total Drama in 2014, the entire series streamed on Netflix in the United States from 2018 until being removed on February 1, 2021.

It was announced on February 17, 2021 that a revival of Total Drama had been greenlit, with two new seasons being produced for Cartoon Network and HBO Max in the United States, Cartoon Network in Canada, and CBBC in the United Kingdom. The first part came out in Italy on April 8, 2023, with the original English version being available on Discovery+ in the region, and will later see an international extension. Despite being announced as two seasons, the revival was later revealed in the end credits to be one season, similar to the fifth season.

Production Tom McGillis says they used a "countrywide online research project" to determine this demographic's likes. Fresh TV partners McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, George Elliott and Brian Irving produced the series. The budget for the first season was US$8,000,000. It was animated in Flash, at Elliott Animation's studio in Toronto.

Every cast and crew member on Total Drama had to sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose who the winner was. All the characters were designed by Todd Kauffman, who previously designed characters for shows such as Bob and Margaret and Yin Yang Yo!. An early name for the series was Camp TV when the series first started production in 2006.

The fifth season was divided into two different segments. The first segment, Total Drama All-Stars, takes place on the original island from the first season, Camp Wawanakwa, while the second segment, Total Drama: Pahkitew Island, features a new setting and cast.

McGillis had stated in 2013 that his personal goal was for Total Drama to go up to ten seasons. Alex Ganetakos, the executive story editor and the senior writer for the series, also mentioned in 2014 that the production team planned to make more seasons in the future.

In a Q&A on September 25, 2018, when asked if there would be additional seasons, McGillis responded with "Nope. Sorry to be a dreamkiller, but there's no market for this experience in the wider entertainment marketplace right now".

On February 17, 2021, it was announced that two new seasons were being produced for Cartoon Network and HBO Max. On June 22, 2022, it was announced by Cake Entertainment that the BBC had joined Warner Bros. Discovery as a co-commissioner for the new seasons and would air them on the CBBC Channel in the United Kingdom. In addition, the previous five seasons of the show and its spin-offs would be added to BBC iPlayer.

On October 6, 2022, Regular Capital posted a tweet revealing a new poster for Total Drama that showed the new cast and Chef in a new design.

On October 27, 2022, it was confirmed in an interview with Terry McGurrin on YouTube that Deven Mack would replace Clé Bennett as the voice of Chef Hatchet due to Bennett moving to Hollywood, and reprising his role from the spin-off series Total DramaRama. He later clarified on Twitter that despite essentially filling the role of a season six or seven, the new seasons are instead being produced as a new series.

On March 28, 2023, it was confirmed that Terry McGurrin would be replacing Christian Potenza as Chris McLean because of "creative decisions".

Episodes

A list of all the seasons that have aired with the original Canadian air dates shown below along with basic elements for each season. The 100th episode aired on February 27, 2014.

Broadcast Total Drama first premiered on July 8, 2007, on Teletoon in Canada, while the series aired almost a year later on Cartoon Network in the United States on June 5, 2008. Since then, Total Drama has become an international franchise and one of the biggest successes for Fresh TV. As of September 2011, the entire series has been shown in over 100 countries around the world, with the first season airing in 188 countries worldwide. The fourth season first aired on Canal+ Family (later on Télétoon+) in France, while the fifth season first aired on K2 in Italy. Australia was the first country to air the third season. Total Drama Island also aired on Pop Max (formerly known as Kix) and Disney XD in the United Kingdom, with Action on Disney XD only and subsequent series unaired in the territory until Total DramaRama was picked up by Pop. Subsequently, a deal with the BBC led to The Ridonculous Race being added to BBC iPlayer and the 2023 Island reboot airing on CBBC. The BBC also gained non-exclusive rights to Total Dramarama, running it concurrently with Pop. In autumn 2024 some of the later seasons of the original run—Revenge of the Island, All-Stars and Pahkitew Island—became available on iPlayer.BBC iPlayer, October 2024

Characters

Total Drama has had a total of 68 characters in the series who were introduced as contestants through seven seasons. The first three seasons consist of an original cast, with a total of 25 characters. 22 were introduced in the first season, while the other 3 were introduced in the second season's special before becoming main characters in the third season. The fourth season consists of a new cast with 13 characters. The first part of the fifth season brings back 14 contestants from the previous two casts each to compete together for the million. A third cast with 14 characters were introduced in the second part of the fifth season. For The Ridonculous Race, 32 new characters were introduced. A fourth cast with 16 new characters were introduced in the revival of Total Drama Island.

By season, 22 characters competed in the first season, 15 competed in the second season, 18 competed in the third season, 13 competed in the fourth season, 14 characters competed in both parts of the fifth season (28 characters in total for the fifth season), 36 competed in the spin-off series The Ridonculous Race, and 16 new characters competed in both parts of the revival season.

Cast